I am sure that most of you (in the Indian sub-continent at least), would have heard of the terrible happenings in Nepal over the past month or so. Well, things haven’t been great there for a long time now, but it is only in the past month that the matter has taken such a serious turn. So many innocent people dead, so much property destroyed, so many people left homeless, scared for life – all because one man wants to hold on to the throne.

But, it is also a very good example of what people power can do. People were out everyday, demonstrating against the ruler of that great land. They wanted ‘DEMOCRACY’. They wanted to elect their leader. They didn’t want a ruler, a king. In the end, the so-called ruler had to back off and do what the people demanded. People power wins! Hopefully, things will settle down in Nepal.

People in Nepal wanted a change, and they got it.

India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal – countries that should be very similar politically, but are not. India is by far the biggest country in every way compared to the others.

Pakistan is ruled by a military dictator who proclaims that his regime is more ‘DEMOCRATIC’ than most democracies in the world.It may be true that he has given more freedom to the Pakistani people than their elected representatives ever did. But, to hold on to power like he is doing is not a very good example of Democracy. Pakistan, by far, has had the most number of military dictators among its sub-continental neighbors.

Bangladesh – first a part of Pakistan, then a country by itself. It too has had its share of Military dictators, but it’s definitely better off right now with elected representatives.

Sri Lanka has been democratic, but has had it’s own share of problems with the Tamil Tigers.

India – the largest democracy in the world. And, to tell you the truth, a country whose people no longer care about democracy. Democracy has lost it’s meaning in India. Yes, we have ‘free’ and ‘fair’ elections all the time. We waste HUGE amounts of money on these elections. But who exactly are we electing? We are electing the kind of people who are not fit to even run a family, let along take care of an entire locality, district, state or the country itself.

When state level elections are held, we don’t even know who the Chief Minister is going to be! The party that comes to power, more often than not, is the party that can bribe the most, cheat the most and somehow even persuade people to vote for them the most! And all the pre-poll promises go down the drain as they concentrate on their main job, the most important job of their lives – make as much money illegally as possible before the next elections!

And what do we do about this? Absolutely nothing. People no longer protest against the sad state of affairs – the bad roads, terrible water supply, non-existent drainage, garbage overflows, power cuts and what not?

Even after 58 years of Independence, if we are not able to provide people with the most basic living conditions consistently, what progress have we made? Sure, there are lots of things that we can show as progress – AirTel, Reliance, Tata, Maruti, Infosys, Larsen & Toubro, Wipro – the list goes on. These companies (and many more) and their products are world class. But, even they complain about the poor state of things in India.

We, as citizens of the country, are responsible for this. I have an idea (a very silly idea): When it’s time for elections (yet again!), we should BOYCOTT the elections. Yes – don’t elect anyone. Why should we? To make those buffoons filthy rich? Again, why should we? Better yet, we should protest against holding elections if the candidates are not made of the right stuff.

So, what makes India stand out from Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan? It’s the people – who no longer care of democracy.

I know nothing is going to change in this country – but these kinds of thoughts pop up in my mind once in a while.

Contrast this to most of the companies in India (and the World, I think. But to a larger extent, in India), where just arguing against the manager’s view is not "encouraged". The boss is always right… long live the boss!

In the last three weeks, I have read three books – 1) One Night @ The Call Center, 2) False Impression, and 3) Five Point Someone.

Both One Night @ The Call Center and Five Point Someone are by Chetan Bhagat, in the realistic-fiction category (you know… the kind of story that is written as fiction, but could very well have been real).

I don’t know about others, but I got to know about Five Point Someone (and Chetan Bhagat) after a friend of mine sent me an email about One Night @ The Call Center (I guess that was about six months ago!!!). I had never heard of this guy or his novel(s) before. I thought this could be another of the over-hyped Indian Authors (the Arundathi Roy kind). Anyway, I thought I would read the books and decide for myself.

I finally bought the two books about three weeks ago and read One Night… first. Didn’t like it at all… what crap!!! Didn’t he have a better idea for a second novel? Or had he reached saturation after just one novel… just like Arundathi Roy did?

Anyway, didn’t feel like reading Five Point… after the disappointment with One Night… . I read the latest Jeffrey Archer fiction next: False Impression. Very impressive… Liked it… was a great time-pass (TP) novel and a serious-fun read.

After False Impression, I had two books left with me – Five Point Someone and Richard Branson – The Autobiography. I was in no mood to read a bio of someone (though Richard Branson’s bio should be even more exiting than most fiction novels!). So, I started with Five Point.

Five Point Someone – What not to do at IIT!: I must admit, after the disappointment with One Night…, didn’t expect much with Five Point. But, what a read!!! Very well written and feels really true. Hopefully, he’ll have a better idea than One Night @ The Call Center for his next novel.

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I can’t describe how I am feeling right now… Frustrated? Irritated? Angry? All of that and also in a mood to throw chairs at Microsoft (Steve Ballmer style). "Why?" you ask. Because Microsoft File Transfer Manager just hosed my Windows Vista download. After struggling to get through the mad rush to download Vista 5308 from Connect (due to lack of effort on the part of Microsoft to provide enough bandwidth), after struggling through power outages, after almost 24 total hours of download, after downloading almost 50% of around 2.8 GB of the DVD image, I have to start all over again.

Why? Because Microsoft decided that they wanted to update their File Transfer Manager.

I came home from work today to find my computer OFF due to a power outage (What’s new? This is India, the country of the corrupt and the lazy). I switched it back ON and tried to resume the Vista download. But, FTM wouldn’t allow me to… it wanted me to upgrade to the "latest" version of the FTM.

I thought "Ok, this shouldn’t be hard…". I downloaded the new version, started the FTM and tried to resume the download again. And what do I see? 0% download completed! What crap! Welcome to the world of Microsoft software. No wonder, people are wishing to move away from Microsoft.

Let me tell you, I have a 128kbps connection. The service provider is kind enough to bump it up to 256kbps during night time. This is considered to be "BROADBAND" in India. Now, I have to download it all over again. Thankfully, I chose an unlimited data transfer connection. Otherwise, I would have had to pay extra to download this stuff!

Update: Just had a look at FTM… it has NOT been able to resume my download. Don’t know what the problem is. The status is either "Interrupted" or it says "Trying to connect".

Answer: It’s not IE4 or IE5 or IE6 or even IE7 Beta2 Preview. It is Mozilla Firefox 1.5.

I have been using Firefox since version 0.7. Never has it been more unstable (and hence unusable) than the 1.5 release. The memory consumption is huge. Experts say that Firefox has lots of memory leak related problems. And it’s true.

The Mozilla foundation has dropped the ball in this release. Patch it up… and fast!

… they win ONE match, and they are said to be in TOP form. The comparisons start… best in the world… next best to Australia… best batting line-up in the world… Sachin is back in form… <add your statement here, praising Indian cricket>.

Heard one positive info. today… that Sachin Tendulkar is having a look at some of his old matches from the 1990s to see what has changed in his batting style. I would say it’s about time he did that. Sachin plays best when he attacks. The moment he starts playing defensively, he gets out… almost immediately. ATTACK!

Now that Sehwag has scored a 50, is his contribution over and done for the series? One big knock per series is his matra, I guess.

UPDATE: Sehwag is out of the series with an injury… so, that was his last innings for the series.

India the country deserves a winning cricket team to keep troubles away from the minds of its citizens. A win is definitely welcomed and quickly turns into a hero-worship opportunity and likewise a loss leads to I-told-you-so demonstrations of superiority. In the end though…it\’s just a game! If we had this kinda debate about our armed forces and economy, we just might do better 🙂